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AT A CONVENTION Centre event a couple of years ago to mark 40 years of diplomatic ties between Ireland and China, then-Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan noted that relations between Dublin and Beijing were “growing stronger with each passing year”.
Flanagan’s statement is backed up by the numbers, which reveal just how strong those ties have become.
In 2020, Ireland had a trade surplus with China of over €3.5 billion after exporting over €10.5 billion worth of goods to China— an 18% increase on the previous year — despite the challenges of the pandemic.
In 2019, foreign direct investment by Chinese companies in Ireland soared by 56% at a time when Chinese interest in the UK, the US and Europe seemed to be waning.
A bevvy of major Chinese companies like the Bank of China have set up shop here in recent years.
Newer Chinese success stories like TikTok are also in the process of ramping up their presence in the State and, since 2012, Ireland has become a top destination for high net-worth Chinese investors and their families to live, work and study in.
But as a small, open economy, Ireland’s trading relationships are heavily influenced by our position within the European Union.
As we’ve covered previously as part The Good Information Project, EU-China relations have deteriorated substantially in recent months, culminating with the shelving of a blockbuster trade deal between the two jurisdictions last week.
So from where we’re standing at the moment, guessing at the trajectory of Ireland-China relations is a difficult task.
But where does it stand right now? Let’s take a look.
Across the board, Ireland has been flooded with international capital in the decade since the crash.
No sector of the economy has been left untouched by the deluge but the property market, in particular, has been completely altered from its pre-crisis structure by this influx of foreign investors.
The downsides of this phenomenon have been made abundantly clear in recent weeks in the controversy over cuckoo funds and their power within the market.
But the flip side is that the market for investment in Irish property is “a lot deeper” than it was pre-crash, says Iain Sayer, director at commercial property consultancy HWBC.
“Before the crash, it was Irish fellas selling to Irish fellas with Irish bank debt. And we all know how that ended.
“So there’s a comfort in the depth of the market. Now, the market is reliant on large firms who tend not to borrow very large sums of money. They will use some leverage, but they’re not borrowing up to the hilt.”
Naturally, Chinese cash has been part of this but it’s difficult to get precise figures.
At the level of individual investors, Sayer says there’s not much evidence that Chinese capital is having any sort of an outsized influence on property markets here, either commercial or residential.
At the end of the day, Ireland is still a more popular destination for individual European and American investors, from his experience. “Now, that’s not to say that Chinese investors haven’t invested via other people’s funds.”
Sayer explains, “There are a lot of very large fund managers active in Ireland… So while we’re not seeing a huge number of inbound queries directly from China, I would expect that there would be Chinese capital invested here through other funds.”
There have, however, been some headline-grabbing forays into the Irish market by Chinese investors — like the purchase of the Fota Island Resort in 2012 by the Kangs, a hotelier family originally from the Heibei Province.
But Sayer says that when investors don’t know a market particularly well, they tend to dip their toes in gradually by investing in “core offices” in city centres — low-risk investments, in other words.
There’s certainly been some of that, he says, but Chinese interest in Irish property is still a new phenomenon.
“From Asia, most of the activity [in Ireland] would be from Korean investors and funds from Singapore. We would have seen some activity and interest from Hong Kong-based investors,” Sayer says.
“But from mainland China, less so.”
Where we have seen substantial interest from individual Chinese investors in Irish property is in the area of social housing.
That’s mainly because Ireland operates something called the Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP), an initiative that allows investors from non-European Economic Area to obtain visas to study, work and live in Ireland.
Aimed at high net worth individuals, prospective applicants have to agree to plough between €500,000 and €2 million into certain, specified areas.
Investments of at least €1 million in Irish enterprises are at the top of the list.
“Particular preference is given” at the moment to investments in social housing, primary healthcare centres and nursing homes, according to the Department of Justice.
Applicants can also choose to invest at least €1 million in Central Bank-regulated investment funds, at least €2 million in publicly listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) or make philanthropic endowments to charitable, cultural or sports organisations of no less than €500,000.
The latest figures from the department, released this week, show that just 3% of the €185.6 million raised through the IIP last year went into REITs, bonds and a mix of other investments.
The lion’s share, some 41%, went towards Irish enterprises.
The programme has been a big draw, mainly for Chinese investors, since its inception in 2012.
China had the highest number of approved applications last year at 254 with the US far behind in second place at just six.
In fact, this has been general trend observed across the lifetime of the scheme. According to an Irish Times analysis of the figures, some 1,088 applications from China had been approved since the IIP’s inception in 2012 to 2019.
Americans were second with just 21 approvals.
It’s worth noting that Ireland isn’t an outlier when it comes to attracting foreign investors in this manner. In fact, according to the BBC, more than half of the nations in the world — including the UK — operate similar systems.
So what’s the attraction of Ireland, exactly?
Ireland’s low-tax environment is certainly a factor. The threat of Brexit and Ireland’s status as a gateway to Europe may also have helped to turbocharge applications in recent years.
It’s difficult to put a precise figure on it at the moment.
According to IDA Ireland, Chinese-owned companies employed at least 900 people in Ireland by the end of 2019.
Since then there have been some high profile jobs announcements by companies like TikTok and Huawei. So it’s possible that the total number of Irish jobs directly supported by Chinese investment has grown to around 2,000 or above.
A plethora of Chinese-owned companies have set up in Ireland in recent years, the result of a concerted effort by the government and the IDA.
Once upon a time, “most of our big FDI projects came from either the United States or Europe,” says Eileen Sharpe, head of Global Business Development for Growth Markets at the IDA.
“Over recent years, we have pivoted to look at investment in what we call growth market areas. Of them, China would probably be the most important.”
Across areas like financial services, technology and pharmaceuticals, Sharpe says the IDA has secured a number of “really strategic investments”.
Wuxi Biologics is one of the most eye-catching.
The pharma company is building a major production facility in Dundalk, which represents “the largest greenfield life sciences investment by a Chinese company into Europe to date,” according to the IDA.
Huawei — which has been at the centre of European and American concerns over data protection at Chinese companies — is also “very well embedded here”, Sharpe says.
“It’s been here for a number of years, but it continues to expand its presence,” she says.
Huawei has three research and development centres in the Republic — in Cork, in Dublin and in Athlone — and recently announced the creation of 110 new R&D jobs.
TikTok is another big win for the IDA.
Amid increased focus on its own data processing policies last year, particularly from the Trump administration, the social media platform announced plans to create a ‘trust and safety’ centre in Dublin and 1,200 jobs along with it.
The company declined to provide a spokesperson to be interviewed for this article.
Asked about trust issues around Chinese companies, Sharpe says that “view is there” but she “hasn’t experienced” any evidence that it’s justified.
“I can only tell you this: the companies that we’re dealing with, they’re highly sophisticated; they’re very commercially driven; they’re good to deal with,” she says.
“They take account of all the protocols in Ireland, to be fair, and they’re very careful to be within regulations etc.”
China has become an increasingly lucrative market for Irish exporters in recent years.
It’s a case of a rising tide lifting all boats, says Mary Kinnane, Enterprise Ireland Regional Director for Greater China.
“The Chinese market has been growing exponentially for several years and this growth has led to increased opportunities in almost every sector,” she says.
Ireland’s export strategy was a key factor in the economic recovery after the Great Recession and in that time, China emerged as a major trading partner.
Last year, Ireland exported over €10.5 billion worth of goods to China, including Hong Kong and Macau, according to CSO figures.
That made China Ireland’s sixth-largest export market and the third-largest outside the European Union, behind only the US and the UK.
Machinery and transport equipment — including aircraft purchased by Irish-resident leasing companies — made up the lion’s share of exports (€6.8 billion).
But Ireland’s pharmaceutical sector, which boomed in 2020 during the pandemic, was another major contributor.
Chemical and related product exports — which includes medical and pharmaceutical goods — to China increased to €1.7 billion in 2020 from €1.4 billion.
Meanwhile, agricultural and live animal exports were worth €810 million, down slightly due to public health restrictions in China at the start of the pandemic in the early part of the year.
“Overall future projections are difficult to predict,” says Kinnane.
“However, the Enterprise Ireland clients who are active in the market are predicting post-pandemic growth.
“It must be acknowledged that given distance China is a challenging market and is not in the main a realistic destination for early-stage exporters.
“That said, for companies who have the experience, scale, management and balance sheet strength China offers very significant potential.
This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work is the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.
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Seriously! If some psychologists cannot spot it how do the expect teachers to spot it. Where do they get the time? Maybe it’ll be like the voice training they get in the dip, 1 lesson is highly effective.
How about restoring guidance and counselling hours???
A counsellor only gets to see you for a few minutes during an occasional appointment . The teacher who has six hours a day with the child will be able to document behavioural changes and how they interact with others, and can be of assistance to counsellors other professionals in determining the child’s needs.
It’ll be easy to spot in a 35 min class.
Such a training program should be available to all free of charge. It seems that the teachers will again be burdened with it. Ah! Sure the teachers can solve all society’s ills!!! Very important though for the opinionated to kick their asses when the teachers raise valid concerns at their Easter Conferences.
There seems to be a hypocritical attitude when it comes to laying the burdens of society on our teachers while at the same time denying them a decent wage and leaving our young teachers with years of uncertainty by having them hop from one little contract to another. An effective teacher is of value to a community if the job is permanent. That way accumulated knowledge will enable the teacher to be effective beyond the narrow confines of curriculum. The backhanded compliment that the teacher should solve all ills simply illustrates the critical importance of the teacher’s commitment to society because the school environment gives certainty in a very uncertain phase of a child’s life. Very often the whole area benefits because of the teachers’ value to the society beyond the narrow confines of the classroom. Parents will invariably place more trust long term in the teacher where their children are concerned because they will be treated honestly. The teacher unions advocate yes for better pay but also yes for better benefits for their pupils. They give a service to the state which goes beyond that of the ordinary worker who only seeks personal benefit. Value our teachers.
Why can’t parents do a course surely they have a better chance of spotting these signs than teachers in a class of many student . It’s a terrible responsibility to put on teachers after a few hours training
Very welcome idea,one suicide is one to many
If one is one too many, the true figure 550 per annum is a grim figure indeed.
It’s so important that every teacher is trained that it’s only going to cost you
50 Euro to do a half day course .
If Console were really serious about this idea for teachers why not train them all nationwide for FREE.
Why doesn’t the govt pay
This is wrong on so many levels. It seems like just another “schools should…” initiative but the topic here is far more serious than most such calls.
It misunderstands the role of teachers in society and in the lives of children. It’s not actually like “Waterloo Road” or “Home and Away” where Sir or Miss is always available and spends as much time worrying about their charges’ emotions and home-lives as they do teaching them.
To say that a half-day course enables anyone “to respond effectively” to mental distress serious enough to lead to suicide is ludicrous. It is not callous to say this is not teachers’ jobs; we would be doing children a disservice with amateur intervention instead of referral to fully-trained professionals.
The analogy to CPR is unwarranted. CPR takes place in response to a catastrophic event, in a situation where even a few minutes delay can mean the difference between life and death.
There is also a danger of a pattern emerging where enthusiastic graduates of this course intervene with students on the basis that doing makes the teacher a life-saving hero. The question will soon be “Do I have to say I’m suicidal to get help around here?” Students need teachers to be a calm, approachable presence in their lives and part of being a professional is knowing where your job ends and some-one else’s begins.
Great idea. We need a real focus on suicide prevention in this country.
So a half day course will make teachers experts in spotting a potential suicide? Either do it right or not at all.
No doubt this training will happen while the teachers should be actually teaching rather than doing it during their 3 months holidays.
From your own extensive knowledge on the matter, what other training occurs when teachers should actually be teaching? Enlighten us please
Do you do your training in your own time? It will be part of teacher training and part of CPD as part of Haddington Rd. Hours. 43 hours extra I do a year UNPAID!!! Do you work 43 hours unpaid? Fair play to you.
I take it then that you would happily give up your holidays to do a similar training course. Or maybe you would have the children get four weeks holiday in the year which would mean you cannot bring your child on holiday because of the need for your child to be in school. Which might have the side effect of decimating the tourist industry and any other industry which depends on creating for children out of school!!!! The fact is teachers do not decide how much holidays the children receive. That is done by the Dept. of Education and Science following consultation and agreement between it, the Unions and the parents. During the “great snow closures” parents clamoured for the restoration of the lost days. The “solution” was that three days be in some way held back in case of snow. This meant that parents could not book a holiday for the midterm week in February because if it snowed in January they would lose the three days in February. If they had taken the chance to book a holiday would they then cancel in the interest of not losing three days of their child’s education? Also many teachers give up the first week of their summer vacation to attend a plethora of courses for which they can take some personal leave days at the discretion of their Board of Management. Would you do likewise with your holiday? Maybe if you really envy and begrudge the conditions of service of a teacher you should have become one any tried to change the system from within instead of sniping.
We all experience periods of stress, sadness, and self-doubt. ‘These don’t make us mentally ill, they define us as human.’ ~ Dr Howard Forman
We all have a biochemistry but it requires daily work to keep our physical / mental health in good shape. Starting with a good nights sleep and good nutrition. Lots of other things that can help and that can be worked on in schools ~ Yoga, meditation, mindfulness, exercise, emotional resilience, how to deal with bullying, building self-esteem etc Talk therapy can help. Also being with nature. And getting enough daylight and sunshine (when possible).
I went to a lecture by 86 yr old Prof Ivor Browne last week. The lecture theatre was packed. Such an interesting presentation. If only the mental ‘health’ system could see our emotional well being on a more holistic level. The mind and body are very much interconnected. Instead of the predominant biomedical / drugging approach.
The “Refer” part. Is what I would worry about in QPR. I hope that doesn’t mean where the GP puts a teenager on mind altering psychoactive drugs ie “anti-depressants” instead helps in developing their long term needs. Emotional well being is something that needs a life long approach and not some “quick fix” drug that can have severe adverse effects. Something I learned from experience.
Young people in particular should not be on these mind altering drugs, due to the suicide risk. Hence these psychoactive drugs carry a black box warning in the US ~
http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/InformationbyDrugClass/UCM096273
{ Do not stop or change prescribed psychoactive drugs without talking to a good doctor, due to the dangers of withdrawal }
PS Any change that TheJournal could change the stereotypical picture ? Looks like someone who got too much drugs and is hiding in the corner of a mental institution ! That is not really how emotional distress looks like or feels like for most and there are some people who are trying to change the whole “head clutching” culture. Or in this case “shin clutching”.
TED Talk ~ The role of nutrition in mental health by Julia Rucklidge ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dqXHHCc5lA
WRAP App demo ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BK_jLMToeM (Wellness Recovery Action Plan)
About time, this country is MILES behind in relation to spotting mental health issues
Michael ,what is this “holiday” thing of which u speak ,must only b available to the few. Have had such bad experience with “teachers” through my own school years and my children’s school years ,that I think it would b wiser to send teachers on courses to prevent people from becoming suicidal ,by learning to communicate in an agreeable manner , Its so easy for a teacher to wreck a child’s self confidence ,and it’s this lack of self confidence that starts the decline in a child’s mental well being .
Eilish, if a child is a brat then there will be problems with the teacher. There’s your issue I’m sure. A little bit of parenting goes a long way.
Speaking as someone who tried to end my life, the period when I was planning my death I became very calm and content because I knew that the end was coming for the intolerable emotional pain I was experiencing. Nobody could have forseen that I had a plan to end my life. Suicidal people are not always going around with a sad face. this training will not help teachers.
Why don’t parents just give their children to schools after birth so they don’t have to do any child care at all.Schools are for educating your children.Teachers get enough flak for not teaching properly now they must become counsellors aswell – in one day !
For anyone suffering from depression, I recommend the http://destroydepression.com/info.php system. Written by a former depression & PTSD sufferer, it teaches 7 natural steps which help to eliminate depression from your life and the success rate is very high.
This thread appears to have gone viral among teachers… They are red thumbing all over the place…
Shur their on there 2 week Easter hols… With another mid term coming up before their 12 week summer hols I guess it’s only right that they do this course during term time… Bless their over worked souls.
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